Worship is to give glory to God who is almighty and powerful. He loves us so much and always wants to bless us. Its a wonderful blessing to worship Him and experience His awesome presence in our midst. Our relationship with God is strengthened when we worship Him. There is no restrictions or rules for worship. It should be of natural flow where all of us can experience God's amazing love, His pure grace and merciful healing touch.
Its a great blessing to have the responsibility of leading worship. It could be the most rewarding and worthwhile thing you can do but the responsibility can also be quite overwhelming. Very often its tiring and also frustrating. Its definitely not an easy job when it comes to co-ordinating with all the team members. Need to be humble, patient and understanding.
The role of the worship leader is to engage people with God and to encourage them to have a closer relationship with God. As they worship they should not worry about the things happening around them instead spontaneously get involved with the personal relationship with God.
If you passionately worship God, then people will see and be encouraged to worship with passion. The Holy Spirit directs the worship through the worship leader. So never compare yourself with others, make use of your talents in your own way to the best. You need to be open to what the Spirit is doing through you in leading the people.
The worship leader need to keep the inner self pure and holy by asking God for the forgiveness of sins and repenting. Having good character and personal quiet time with God is important. When you lead the worship the Lord's anointing will flow through you and will be of great blessing to others to experience His power.
1.Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your true and proper worship. 2.Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)
Worship leader should get rid of pride and selfishness. Having the desire to be seen or heard should not be the priority. The call to worship leading is a call to serve. It is not for exposure or satisfying the ego. Worship leading is not a performance. You will hurt others if your heart is not in the right place. Stay humble before the Lord. All glory and honour should be to God and not on the self.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 14 : 11)
You may feel unworthy to worship lead due to your personal issues. Sometimes you may feel very weak, depressed and inadequate. You need to pray and ask forgiveness for the sins committed in the past. God is merciful and will renew your strength when you truly repent and seek Him. Prepare your own heart, seek his face, open yourself to hear God's voice and pray for others too. You will be anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Having good relationships with everyone are important before leading the church into worship. There's nothing worse than feeling alone when you're leading worship.
Jesus said, If your brother has something against you, leave your gift in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
Surround yourself with good people whom you can trust. Get their support through prayer and be uplifted by their encouragement.
When you get ready to worship thats the right time for the spiritual attack. You may not feel Ok on that day, it may be due to sore throat or headache, even without any reasons you may feel down and uncomfortable. Music instruments can get spoilt at that time or your microphone may not work properly. At the last minute you would have found that one of your team members missing. All these kind of things can disturb you very much and will not allow you to worship whole-heartedly. So prepare yourself with prayer to overcome trials and temptations. Watch out of what you see, what you think, what you say and what you do. During worship even if you make any mistakes it doesn't matter, you can learn to do better next time.
Being in a continuous attitude of worship abiding with God you can really work against any temptations that come your way.
"The one who is in you, is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4)
Be in prayer when selecting which songs to do, ask God for direction. Sing through some of the songs and see if you can feel a strong sense of His presence. Some songs will just feel right and you will have peace when you sing them.
Don't choose lots of songs that can easily divert the people from worship, to be more effective never choose the same song many times.
Even if you have musical ability and skill you may not have worship leading skills and if you don't have musical ability and skill it doesn't mean that you can never lead worship. Everything depends on our motives and desire to worship.
"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7)
We need to practice well, improve our skills to give our best to the Lord.
"Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy." (Psalm 33:3)
Try to be familiar with the words and music. Everyone does make mistake, so if you forget a word or if anything goes wrong never show faces or stop the worship. The flow should be there so that the people doesn't lose their focus on God.
Even if you know all the songs by heart, it is still useful to have them displayed in front of you, so that you can refer to them, to know which song to do next and to make sure you sing it right. If you have made up a song list one week, and the worship time was really good, it doesn't mean that it will work again. Don't use the list again. Do something different next time, make up a new list with prayer.
It would be good to start the worship with a prayer so as to prepare the hearts of people to focus on God. While leading worship it is important to look what is happening, if people are not following you try to get their attention by changing your way of leading. Help them to focus onto the Almighty. At the same time if you are constantly looking at people you won't be able to concentrate in the worship. People may not feel comfortable if you keep on looking at them. If you are passionately worshiping God yourself, then that passion will come across and draw people into worship too.
Sing with the people, step back from the microphone occasionally and just worship God. You could listen to the people's voices, it can be amazing. Staying in silence for a bit can be very powerful, some words of prophecy might appear.
Once you've started worshiping then try not to interrupt the flow too much. If you stop between every song and say a prayer or introduce the song, it can be really distracting for people.
There must be freedom in worship. It's not your responsibility to force others to worship, if they're not willing, then that's their own decision. Let the Lord inspire their response.
To avoid people getting bored never repeat the songs with the same rhythm and tone, try to bring variations when possible keeping up the timing and singing the right notes. Changing the feel of the song and playing the chorus softly will have an effect on people to understand the meaning of what they are singing.
You need to figure out a way of communicating with them during the worship time. The best way for this is through sign/body language. When you want to bring it down, you can wave your hand slowly downwards. If you want to build it up, you can move your hand upwards so that the musicians will notice the extra intensity and follow by doing the same with their instruments. Making an eye contact can really help if you want to communicate with them. Soon your team will learn to read your sign/ body language and then leading them becomes easier.
Choosing songs, getting printed song sheets ready should be done before the actual worship service. Practice until you are satisfied, have good rest without worrying, pray with your team and have a rehearsal, everything will be fine.
© Malar Harris